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Curated by Taiwanese visual artist Page Tsou, Visual Taipei is an impressive exhibition that brings together 61 visual artists, illustrators, and designers from around the world. Held in Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park as part of International Design House, the exhibition has been proudly described by Page as a realization of his dreams. By inviting some of the most talented international communication artists together into one single exhibition in Taipei, he hopes to explore the relationship between the worlds of art and design, and the interaction between digital artworks and hand-painted artworks. Out of the 61 artists, 20 have been selected to present their unique vision of Taipei City through their art.

“I am really excited to show everyone the different works created by these 20 artists about Taipei. It’s interesting to see how these artists show Taipei in their own style,” Page says. “It’s hard to define what Taipei is, and it’s interesting to see how other people see this topic, not just foreigners, but also people from different cities in Taiwan.”

Browsing through the works of these twenty artists, some unsurprising elements make appearances, such as scooter bikes and Taipei 101. However, it’s fascinating to see the ways that these talented artists reinterpret these familiar aspects of Taiwan’s capital through their own means. For example, in graphic designer Martin Nicolausson’s The City, he presents the iconic Taipei 101 as a structure in an abstract landscape that’s seemingly self-contained within a person’s mind. Paul Blow’s Taipei Life is a vivid illustration of a lady racing by on a bright red scooter, with two dogs in tow.

Besides the familiar cityscape where Taipei 101 looms over hordes of scooters, the city is also known for it’s accessibility to nature. In Hannah Warren’s City Lungs: Da’an Forest Park, she focuses on the famous Da’an Forest Park of Taipei and presents it in her lively and colorful illustrative style. Netsko Seki’s Taipei uses the green of Taipei’s mountains, the blue of the city’s skies, and lush reds of a sunset as the backdrop to her illustration, which is populated with famous Taipei landmarks and locals going about their day.

It’s also unsurprising to see traditional Taiwanese marketplaces and street food make appearances in the collection of artworks. Adrian Johnson’s Night Market presents his vision of a local food stall as geometric blocks of color. In Joohee Yoon’s vision of Taipei, the Korean artist shows a lady frantically preparing a bowl of shaved ice, one of the most beloved local desserts. Illustrator Tatsuro Kiuchi’s One Day in Taipei instead opts for a calm local street market scene in which a schoolgirl is idly browsing a selection of fresh produce.

Kaohsiung-based artist Croter Hung’s vision of Taipei also involves food stalls, albeit they only play a minor role in his contributed work; his Toa-ka-lak Taipei is a dizzying piece of artwork that blends temples, roads, congested traffic, and even Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building into a surreal and chaotic sprawl of fun, nuanced details. Similarly playful is Antti Kalevi’s submission, an abstract piece of work that’s filled with formless shapes, and umbrella-wielding pedestrians, which speaks of the rainy weather that Taipei is infamously known for.

Despite the spectrum of artistic styles, the twenty artists have all managed to showcase Taipei for the diverse and multifaceted city that it is through their own unique vision. “I hope that people feel like the content is good enough to want to spend at least an hour there without feeling bored. It will be interesting and easy to understand, and not like some overly abstract or conceptual art. I hope that’s a way for people to learn something from some of these artists that have come from all over the world, including several very talented Taiwanese artists,” Page says. “Changing people’s attitudes takes some time, but the dialogue has started now in Taipei, which is important. I think the World Design Capital is making the city more lively and energetic, and also helping us to build our connections with other parts of the world.”